CONTRIBUTION TO THE SURVEY OF HANDWRITING : The "Gestalt" of Handwriting of Apparently Normal Persons in Comparison with Specimens of Institutionalized Mental Patients

MAX A. BRUCKAuthors Info & Affiliations

Publication: American Journal of Psychiatry

Volume 112, Number 8

https://doi.org/10.1176/ajp.112.8.640

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Abstract

1. By applying technical methods and mathematical principles to the survey of Gestalt in handwriting the shift from solely intuitional comprehension to scientific testing and practical evaluation is begun.

2. The tests are performed with the help of a map measure, a simple device which makes a quick integrative measuring possible.

3. On scripts of 27 apparently normal individuals the following hypothesis is tested and found to be justified: The total of the length of words, measured in the middle zone of letters, is related to the total length of lines according to the principle of the "golden section."

4. Among 25 institutionalized mental patients were 9 cases whose scripts revealed proportions not conforming with the principle of the "golden section."

5. The results of this investigation, evaluated by tests of significance, advocate this method as a sort of graphometrical screening test. The author intends to supplement it with other tests, according to the principles of integrative survey.

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Information & Authors

Information

Published In

American Journal of Psychiatry

Volume 112 • Number 8 • February 1956

Pages: 640 - 646

PubMed: 13292553

History

Published in print: February 1956

Published online: 1 April 2006

Authors

Details

MAX A. BRUCK

The Veterans Administration Hospital, Canandaigua, N. Y.

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CONTRIBUTION TO THE SURVEY OF HANDWRITING : The "Gestalt" of Handwriting of Apparently Normal Persons in Comparison with Specimens of Institutionalized Mental Patients

Abstract

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